Frank Gutch Jr: The Non-Science of Record Collecting; A Tip o’ the Hat To Dave Gray (RIP); and a short look at the Notes…..

I’m cleaning out portions of my record collection, or what is left of it.  At one time, I had over 10,000 albums (according to a friend who spent a couple of days counting them).  Over 10,000!  I woke up one day and realized that no one in their right mind would have that many, which brings me to the now-occasional columnist for DBAWIS, Darrell Vickers.  I am sure he has over 10,000 which proves that mental imbalance runs in his family.  He is the perfect dumpster for many of the albums I still have and will be a recipient of a few.  I kid, of course, because for both of us, record collecting has been and still is, in his case, an adventure.

Frank Gutch Jr: Answering the Questions, Where Do Houseflies Socialize; You Only Believe Me When I’m Lying; Rolling Stones Magazine’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All-Time? Seriously?; Plus Notes

The world doesn’t always go my way and sometimes I get so pissed about that that I have to vent.  GodDAMN if the world isn’t going the way of idiots and psychopaths as the Trump Generation attempts to destroy everything good, but I will be damned if I will let it happen to my music.  That’s right.  My music!  Sure, you have your music— The Beatles and Floyd  and Queen and even Beyonce and Kanye and whoever the hell else.  YOU don’t have to worry.  YOU can find that music and plenty of people who still love that music just walking down the street.  Me, I have to work for it.  I have to scrounge and search and listen and question at every turn.  You think that’s easy?

Frank Gutch Jr: This One’s Personal— Tamara Saviano and Guy Clark; Plus a Compendium of Notes (Whatever a Compendium Is)

Tamara Saviano has written a biography of Guy Clark.  She dedicated it to Chet Flippo who I know as a music writer and historian who wrote for and edited a series of important zines back in the seventies.  The article which struck me the most was the piece he wrote for Phonograph Record Magazine in the March 1974 issue titled “Texas Rock and Roll Spectacular” which broke Texas music into regions and highlighted the most notable musicians.  Buddy Holly was in it, of course, as was Doug Sahm and Johnny Winter and Waylon Jennings and even Groovy Joe Poovey, all cited as influential to Texas music.  Even Townes Van Zandt got mention and I mention that not in the sense that he did not deserve it but in the sense that Guy Clark, very much a cohort of Van Zandt, was conspicuous in his absence.  I have scratched my head over that for years.  I can stop scratching.  Saviano, in this book, sets the record straight.

Frank Gutch Jr: And the Smell of Incense: The Boundaries of Psych, Plus Notes

Ah, Psychedelia! A musical underground which fed on the springs of youth. God knows where it came from or how it evolved (there are many theories based upon preconceived notions which may or may not have anything to do with anything except ego), but it most likely was a media conception: Old people trying to write about things they didn’t understand, looking at the new world through cataracts and prejudice, and that view taking hold.